College Football Realignment: Conference USA, MWC Merger Proves CFB Has Gone Mad

The Sporting News is one of several sources in the last 24 hours to report a rather interesting potential merger of mid-major conferences in the works.

The report is that Conference USA and the the Mountain West Conference are looking to merge, which would form a 22-team conference.

There is one potential benefit to this move, and it's obvious.

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"The hope is that the one association could eventually get an automatic qualifying bid to a Bowl Championship Series game."

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Let's assume for a second that that hope becomes a reality and that this Super Conference becomes an automatic qualifier in the BCS. Let's also assume that all existing members of both conferences remain there, which is by no means a given.

Since the plan is for a 22-team conference, we're going to assume that a 22-team conference will be what happens.

How in the world are you going to decide a conference champion and automatic BCS qualifier when your conference has 22 teams?

Look at the conferences that have 12 teams. They split their conferences into two divisions and then play a championship game between the two division winners. Even that frequently causes an unbalanced schedule. How in the world is it going to work if you're literally almost doubling that?

Obviously, every team can't play every team. That can't even happen in conferences that have any more than 10 teams.

The need for this is obvious. These schools, notably Boise State, have been consistently looked over by the BCS and not given a chance to prove their value. I get that—I am not opposed to these schools getting a chance.

But they have been looked over in the past in favor conference schools. Now, they will be getting looked over in favor of each other.

The same article also details that members of those two conferences (including Boise State) are being courted by the Big East. If you're one of those sought after schools, what sounds like the better offer?

A 22-team conference would take a step towards creating some equality. From that end, this is a good thing. But on balance, it wouldn't make the chances for these teams any greater.

Let's even say that these guys got an automatic bid. The money that comes from that is split between conference members. How is it beneficial for that conference's champion if they have to split revenue with 21 other schools?

Unless I am missing something big here, there is no way that a conference that big will be a positive for any of its members.